Tuesday, December 26, 2006

If you use your imagination you will hear the clatter of the classroom film projector, the teacher snoring, and bored 13-year-old girls passing notes. This should not distract you from how nerdily awesome these are.

Very sharp animation from Zagreb Studio over at Cartoon Brew... my only complaint is this blatant ripoff of The Cheat from 1961, when The Cheat was very young, and impressionable... perhaps he didn't realize he was under contract with the Brothers Chaps.

Off the subject a little, here is my Top Ten Most Entertaining Double-Bass Players of All Time List:

Thursday, December 14, 2006

My apologies to the 1,837,729 people (as of this evening) who have already seen this, but it is pretty staggering... Lasse Gjertsen says he can't play these instruments, he's just good at editing his footage together. Heh!

Afanasy Nikitin

Afanasy Nikitin was the first Russian to explore India, which he wound up doing in about 1466.

In history books you will find very little about his dealings with the Shuisky sisters, or Alnus Rugosa, or Das Brick, because I made them up.

Ali Qushji and Perkin Warbeck and Jami the Persian Poet were real people, who sadly never really had anything to do with Russia or Afanasy Nikitin. The Kreml, while a real place, was probably not as fun as it appears herein.

So abandon all pretence of learning about historical Russia, ye who enter here.